


Promise Me You

by Jade_Masquerade



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 19:00:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11789430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Masquerade/pseuds/Jade_Masquerade
Summary: When Jon thought of the things he might see in the South—the rich blue waters of the narrow sea, coastal beaches of soft white sand, even piles of shimmering dragonglass—he knew none of it would be half so beautiful as the sight of Sansa stretched beneath him.





	Promise Me You

**Author's Note:**

> I altered the timeline a bit here so Jon goes to the crypts the night before he leaves for Dragonstone rather than in the morning.

Sansa’s words echoed in his mind as clearly as she’d spoken them in the Great Hall: _You’re abandoning your people. You’re abandoning your home._ She didn’t have to say the last part aloud for Jon to be able to hear it too: _You’re abandoning me._

He could still feel Littlefinger’s throat beneath his fingers, the way he squirmed for breath, the life slipping from him until he granted that scum a mercy he didn’t deserve. 

_Littlefinger knows,_ he thought, not for the first time. Perhaps it did not matter whether or not he went South. If the man knew and chose to use such information… Jon might as well already be dead again. 

Jon meant what he said. A Stark had bested Lord Baelish once before in a duel for a lady’s honor; he had no qualms doing so again for all to see. 

His hands shook with rage, with frustration, with trepidation—he did not think he knew the difference anymore. What did it matter, though, when he knew what had to be done? 

He was no fool. Certainly he realized many had gone South before him never to return: Robb and Father, Uncle Brandon and Rickard Stark, countless others from the tales Old Nan told and the histories Maester Luwin recited to them as children. He had not forgotten, although he could not help but think perhaps they had gone for the wrong reasons. Yet how could this be wrong now when they would all be dead anyhow if he did not take the risk? 

It was with those questions, that churning swirl of muddled emotion, and the ringing of Sansa’s words in his ears that he made the slow climb up the stone steps to the lord’s chambers. He’d made his peace with Father, he’d issued what he deemed to be a sufficient threat to Lord Baelish, and now it came time to treat with Sansa.

 _Tomorrow,_ he’d said. If he gave himself anymore time, he knew he’d never go. The White Walkers loomed ever closer—seven hells, with the numbers he witnessed at Hardhome and their army ever increasing, in the span of a day they could have built fleets of their own and sailed around Eastwatch-by-the Sea. But tomorrow, he decided, because he’d allow himself this one selfish indulgence for a single night longer. If Sansa would have him, that was. 

Like as not, she probably had naught to say to him. That might have been just as well since every version of parting words he crafted in his mind seemed to curdle once he sought to practice them out on his tongue, yet it would have been craven to depart at sunrise without so much as a farewell. 

He had already failed her enough times, though, that he wondered if once more would make any difference. There were the instances in which he rejected her advice, when he suspended his trust in her. There were moments that bordered on treasonous, when the men of the North had chosen him over her on virtues he should have forced himself to question. And those paled in comparison to his most devastating disappointment: that of his failure as a brother. 

Robb would have protected her. He would have been merely grateful for her survival; he would have welcomed her home and loved her like a sister. He would have given her all the time and space she needed. He would have treated Sansa with the deference she deserved. Instead Jon bore witness to what she had suffered, and he took what she offered anyway, things that he did not deserve: touches that seared through his skin, kisses he willingly drowned himself in, nights spent buried inside of her. 

But those late nights together would now come to an end, if they had not already. 

He raised a fist to the heavy wooden door and steeled himself for harsh words of anger, an onslaught of fiery fury, or maybe even the haughty disdain of the spoiled child he remembered from long ago.

The door opened to no such welcome. 

“Jon.” 

For all their disagreements, each of the times she challenged him, every instance of when she disagreed with his decisions, Sansa had never been outright cold. He knew what some of the men called her behind his back: _Ice Queen,_ in reference to her inscrutable expressions, her immovable resolve. But that had not been the Sansa Jon had known ever since she reached for his ale at Castle Black, not the Sansa who teased him, who talked to him for him and not his title, the one with whom he shared squabbles and exasperation with followed by confidences and pliant kisses. If that Sansa had gone the moment he’d met her eye across the Great Hall and announced he was headed for Dragonstone, he wasn’t sure if he could forgive himself. 

“May I enter?”

She did not answer but left the door open as she turned away. She had dressed for bed already in a long woolen shift, plain and practical, beneath her robe of blue so dark it seemed black in the dim light of the dying fire, yet it managed to heat his blood. It did not matter what Sansa wore; his traitorous body would want her still all the same. 

He shut the door behind himself against his better judgment. “Sansa…” 

She positioned herself out of his reach. “You have a long way to travel in the morn.”

“You know why I have to go.” The words sounded leaden and empty even to his ears. Of course he did not want to abandon her alone in the place she’d suffered so much, and certainly he wished to take her South. Sansa knew those lands, those people better than Jon ever would. But it would be too dangerous for her there, with Cersei still out for her head in Joffrey’s death. Besides, he had not erred in saying a Stark needed to remain in Winterfell, and who better than her? 

And then there were the less rational parts of his mind he warred against, and the circumstances they conjured, picturing him and Sansa alone and far beyond the reaches of anyone to which they were beholden. The temptation would be too great to stay there, to flee across the narrow sea, to abscond to somewhere they would finally be safe, to a place where their names would not matter, where no one would know what he felt for her was a perversion. 

“I know. But I don’t know why you’re here now.” 

He could not pretend her words did not sting. She had been his sole source of comfort since he’d been thrust into this chaos, their nights spent talking having progressed to gentle touches when she admitted she feared such from anyone else after Ramsay, then kisses, and finally this, this fire that burned inside, spreading through his veins, this bolt of possession that reared in his chest whenever Sansa stood before him in all her regal beauty. He didn’t know which he feared more: that his departure would extinguish Sansa’s fancy for him or that his desire for her never would.

“Do you think I want to go?” He fought down his voice as it attempted to rise. “And you know I never wanted a crown—” 

Sansa regarded him with ice blue eyes. “You did not want to be Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch either, if you told me true. You did not want to come take our home back from those monsters. You scarcely wanted to live at one point, to hear you tell it. What do you want?”

 _You._ “What I want matters little.” 

“Did you ever read the history books, or were you too busy swinging your sword and brooding?” she asked, her face flushed red now. Outside of her chambers she maintained decorum, at least, but here there were no northmen to see her crack, no children for whom to save face, not even Brienne to straighten her spine for. “Aegon Targaryen threatened Torrhen Stark and all the North with dragon fire if he did not bend the knee. And what about all that came after? Forget our family. Have you forgotten the Dance of the Dragons, the Blackfyre Rebellions? How many millions died at their hands, and now you want to offer yourself up?” 

“Those were different times,” he insisted. “Death did not come for all then. They thought of only pride and power, lands and titles. What does any of that mean when we know what march towards us?” 

“You are assuming this Dragon Queen will see things the way you do.” Her voice trembled. “You are assuming she is not the manifestation of the Mad King.” 

“And you are assuming she will not care for the people she claims to be hers. You are assuming she has inherited the worst of her family traits.” 

Her bottom lip quivered, and she caught it between her teeth. When she met his eye, this time he recognized what he saw there. It was not the ire she wielded in the Great Hall, nor the frostiness of her greeting. No, he had observed the same look in green boys taking their first walk atop the Wall, the expression he remembered seeing in the eyes of men as they’d fallen to the Boltons outside Winterfell, the very thing that had sent bands of proud wildlings to make cause with their sworn enemy. He felt it himself when he thought about her remaining here in Winterfell, enemies known and unknown seemingly waiting for an opportune moment. _Fear._

“Sansa, I…”

“Don’t. I don’t want any more of your reasons or apologies.”

He stood dumbly, even as his heart ached to see her so. 

“Promise me,” she said, her words no more than a hoarse whisper. He moved closer and took her hands in his. “Come back to me. Promise me, Jon. Swear you’ll come back.” 

He cupped her face and swept hot tears from her cheeks, and it only took a moment for his mouth to slant against hers. He convinced himself long ago this was a fulfillment of his promises, protecting her by offering just a few moments of pleasure amidst all the pain. But he knew that would not be nearly enough this time, so he dredged up the words from where they resided deep in his chest and spoke them aloud. 

“Promise you’ll be safe,” she continued once he assented, her hands skimming over his jerkin, her fingers undoing laces as she went. “Promise me you’ll remember the North.” 

He promised, just as he’d promised her Winterfell, the lives of those who’d hurt her, that he would go where she did. He would have promised her anything if it meant her gratitude, her safety, her happiness. 

“Promise me you,” she said, her tears gone now, and he couldn’t imagine a world in which he would have denied her. 

His hands steadied as he ran them through her the heavy locks of her hair, down her back, over the robe he pushed away. This was how they’d learned to resolve their quarrels, or perhaps this was the resolution itself, he didn’t know; it didn’t matter. He couldn’t bring himself to care, not when Sansa’s tongue slid against his and pulled a groan from his throat. 

She tore the tie from his hair, letting it free. Her kisses were like kindling, stirring his blood, sparking things he had no names for, things he didn’t know he was capable of experiencing anymore. He returned them, wanting her to know she was the sole thing that made him feel something, made him feel anything again after the nothingness of death, the disorientation of resurrection, that nothing made him feel more imbued with life than seeing her smile, hearing her laughter, tasting her against his tongue. 

Even away from all the snows of the North in the sun of the South, even if he went all the way to the deserts of Dorne, nothing would ever match the warmth of Sansa in his arms. Did a word exist for how he felt, already missing this moment while he was still consumed by it? 

Unencumbered by his furs and cloak, he slid down her body until he knelt before her. His cock ached as it strained against the laces of his breeches, but he would suffer gladly if it meant Sansa would allow him to spend the night wrapped around her, atop her, inside of her every way she wanted him to be. 

“Jon,” she gasped. She always said his name when he intended to worship her like this. The first time she freely admitted she’d been scandalized, most times she panted it in pleasure, but this time she said it like her most fervent wish, and he complied. 

Setting her on the edge of the bed, he shoved the straps of her shift off her shoulders, pushing it down and down, until it joined the discarded clothing on the rushes of the floor. He splayed his hands over her bare skin, paying precisely amount of attention to the scars she bore as she did to his anymore: none at all. Rather he heeded her breasts, her hips, her arse, each part of her beneath his fingers like the kind of heaven he’d used to imagine existed. 

“That is the only way south you should go,” she said in a tone far more familiar than her tears and taciturn words, shoving at his shoulder. He wished it could be that way, that he could leave the running of his kingdom to Ser Davos or Lord Royce or Lyanna Mormont or whoever would have it while he did nothing but spend the rest of his days supping at Sansa’s cunt. 

He speared one hand through soft red curls and spread her apart with the other, flushed pink and wet for him. He scarcely managed to stifle the curse that pushed its way onto his lips, trying to slip out, desperate to release some of the steam pent up inside of him, and he wasted no time in licking up the center of her folds. 

This was what he’d done night after night, once Sansa pleaded for his affections to move beyond soft caresses and tender kisses, lapping at her until she clenched around his fingers and pulsed against his tongue, the sight of her coming undone and laying loose-limbed and satiated more than enough for him, until she begged to feel his cock inside her, that she would never be truly rid of _him_ until she did, and he lacked the fortitude to refuse. 

Sansa worried for Daenerys Targaryen’s sanity, but maybe she should have fretted for Jon’s instead. What kind of madness could make him feel as though this was the only place he belonged? Why did it seem he lived for the way her fingers tugged at his hair as she neared her peak, or the way he relished rubbing his beard against the smooth skin of her long legs? 

Not even those questions could draw his attention away though when Sansa came, crying out his name as her warmth washed against him, her silk slickening his hand. 

The first time he ever stood before Sansa like this, he had been afraid: afraid to show her the marks of death he bore, afraid to disappoint, afraid to hurt her. But now it made him feel alive for her hands to push his open tunic to the floor, her fingers to work in the laces of his breeches, her palm to wrap around his cock. 

He stepped backward to the bed and moved to pull her atop him; this was how they coupled most times so Sansa could feel free, so she could take instead of be forced to give, but this night she drew him between her legs and dug her heels into his back. 

“Please, Jon,” she whispered, and the way she breathed his name stoked the flames raged beneath his skin. He needed no more encouragement than that to bury himself in her heat. 

When Jon thought of the things he might see in the South—the rich blue waters of the narrow sea, coastal beaches of soft white sand, even piles of shimmering dragonglass—he knew none of it would be half so beautiful as the sight of Sansa stretched beneath him. He doubted even the fire of three dragons could compare to the flames that licked his insides, could not imagine that they could complete with the kind of conflagration that threatened to consume him when he lost himself in her… 

He had grown accustomed to slow, lingering strokes and all manner of sweet words, encouragements, reassurances, and praises. Tonight, though, they were replaced with a sense of urgency and ferocity. His hands itched to touch her everywhere at once, and indeed he attempted: the slightness of her waist, where he’d helped to cinch her corset the first time he ever allowed him to place his hands on her, the curve of her hips, where he’d steadied her once after she slipped as they walked together on the snowy walls, the swell of her breasts she’d invited him at long last to touch one night after a few glasses of Arbor gold. 

Sansa knotted a hand in his hair and directed his attention upward from where he’d been ravishing her teats so her tongue could dance with his, each of his strokes an expression of his adoration, a conveyance of all the things he could never say aloud. He tried forcing himself to etch the details into his mind, but Sansa made that as difficult as she made everything. How could he choose just one place to look, at her hair spread across her pillows like a sea of copper or her lips, parted in a gasp and kissed red? How could he focus when each time he thrust into her, she wordlessly responded by clasping around his cock? 

He only wanted more, demanded more of her: to hold him closer, take him deeper. Sansa tightened around him and beneath him, and he knew what she needed, sliding a hand down from where he’d been skimming over her ribs between them. She peaked with his name sighed across his cheek, her legs wrapped tight enough around his waist to leave bruises, her teeth muffled against his shoulder, her fingernails scraping down his back. He hoped her marks lingered, that the blemishes would serve as reminders of the moments they stole, the times they were able to forget what they were and who they were, even if only for mere minutes. 

His thrusts grew erratic, shallow then deep until he drew away from her heat and spilled across the soft, pale skin of her thighs. 

“Don’t leave,” she murmured, and he didn’t bother to ask whether she meant tonight or tomorrow or ever. Instead he gathered her in his arms and held her close, her flushed skin pressed to his, her hair tangled in his hands, the beating of her heart palpable against his chest. 

_This,_ Jon wanted to tell her, because in that moment it was the only thing he knew: _this is all I want._

 

In the morning, Sansa deigned them with her presence on the ramparts as they prepared to embark. She watched alone as Jon mounted his horse, his guard following suit. 

His heart clenched when he met her eye, struck by the sight of her dressed even in muted blacks and greys amidst the snow and stone of Winterfell. He’d always thought those to be the defining features of his home, but he knew otherwise now. 

There was nothing more he could do in return than offer a wave, a rebuke, an insult, really, after all they’d shared together, so he made that the last reminder of the things he could never speak, hoping she would accept it as his vow, his promise: he would return.


End file.
